Wafah Dufour

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wafah Dufour
Background information
Birth name	Wafah bin Ladin
Also known as	Wafah Dufour (mother name)
Born	May 23, 1975 (age 31)born in Los Angeles, California, United States
Origin	Swiss and American nationality. Mother Swiss and Iranian, Swiss nationality. Father Saudi with Swiss nationality.
Occupation(s)	Singer, songwriter, model
Website	WafahDufour.net

Wafah Dufour (born Wafah bin Ladin on May 23, 1975 in Los Angeles, California) is an American model and aspiring singer-songwriter. Her father, Yeslam bin Ladin (half brother of Osama bin Laden), is Saudi Arabian and her mother, Carmen bin Ladin, is Swiss and Iranian (mother: Mirdoth/Sheybani). She is one of the 300 half nieces and half nephews of Osama bin Laden. In an interview with the British newspaper The Observer, she said she had never met him, which she stressed again in an interview with American journalist Barbara Walters in the news show 20/20, in her June 2005 appearance. To further distance herself from her uncle, she also changed her birth name to her mother's maiden name, Dufour.

According to her official website, Dufour was born in Los Angeles, California, but spent the early part of her life in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Dufour, her little sisters Najia (1978) and Noor (1987), her mother (1954) and her father (born on October 19, 1950) then moved to Geneva, Switzerland. In 1988, her parents separated. Yeslam divorced her mother in February 2006 after 15 years. She earned a law diploma at Geneva Law School (Switzerland) and later a master's degree from Columbia Law School in the United States. She lived in Manhattan until around the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks, but was staying in Geneva for summer holiday at the time of the attacks. She currently lives in New York City and is working on her first album.

Her father and his family haven't spoken to her or her two sisters since she was 15 years old . It is believed that he refuses to see her because she has adopted a western lifestyle. But it should be noted that Yeslam Bin Laden who works mainly in Switzerland also has a western lifestyle. He has a young girlfriend, a lawyer who is not a Muslim. An ex-girlfriend of his, Catherine Berclaz, an interior decorator wrote a book on their relation "Yeslam, my love. In the heart of Binladen family".

Dufour has publicly denounced her uncle and any ties to Islamic extremism. Wafah has denounced Osama's actions, even changing the spelling of his last name. Her mother Carmen wrote an autobiography, Inside the Kingdom (ISBN 0-446-69488-6), which was a New York Times Bestseller, recounting her life in the Bin Laden family and how she managed to keep her daughters in her custody. Dufour's mother tongue is French, she also speaks English and Spanish, but not Arabic.

In December 2005, Dufour posed in a provocative, sexy photographic spread for the men's magazine GQ. In 2006, she signed a deal with ReganMedia to star in a reality series, focusing on her life as an aspiring singer. In April 2006, she signed a $100,000 contract to model with Brazilian fashion label TNG (Size: less than a 1m60); this deal includes a billboard campaign and fashion show in Brazil. She has no family fortune.